The Revolution Is Televised

The riots have claimed Mallorcan victims. Bar Brits. The cancellation of the international footy has deprived them of an important date in their calendars; those, that is, for whom the "season" revolves around the peaks of the football season and England internationals in particular.

Rather than cries of "England till I die", Bar Brits reverberate to the calls of "shoot 'em" and not "shoot, come on Rooney, shoot". These calls mix with demands that the army be brought in, that water cannons be used, that the birch be brought back along with National Service and, for good measure, hanging. Enoch is invoked, as Enoch tends to be invoked at such times.

There isn't a whole load of sympathy as Sky plays over and over scenes of unrest, looting, burning cars, burning buildings and fights with police. The Bar Brit punter doesn't want any of this; he wants to be able to watch the telly in order to vent his frustration at another dismal England performance and to shout abuse about Capello.

Sky though, along with the rest of the media, have played their own part. Social media may have been significant (why should anyone be surprised by this?), but rolling 24-hour news and constant images are also significant. They fuel greater disturbances as the hoody class seeks to find itself captured on camera.

This is, after all, the happy-slapping generation, one brought up on actual and personal depictions of unruliness and violence and on its self-aggrandising glorification. Being seen, albeit with a face masked or covered by a hood, is what counts. Being caught on digital film is the esteem maker for those without esteem. Attacks on reporters are not attacks to prevent filming, but attacks for attacks' sake. To prevent filming would undermine the ethos of riot in 2011; these have been riots by media and not social media. They disprove Gil Scott-Heron's poetry of the revolution not being televised.

And in Bar Brits, as in bars in Britain, the public is served its media diet and only too willingly regurgitates it. Words on the lips of Bar Brit occupants are "pure" and "criminality", a curious juxtaposition of adjective and noun, but one spouted as the on-message spin-bite by police, the Home Secretary and a Prime Minister forced to leave his tennis kit behind in Tuscany.

In 1981 the revolution was televised, too. A difference, however, was that there wasn't the cachet attached to being at the end of a lens. It was a televised revolution which gave an incomplete and at times false picture. Ealing, where I lived then, was caught up but not to anything like the way the trouble was represented. Unlike this time.

The revolution is televised not only on Sky and the BBC but also on Spanish TV. Riot by media is a global event, and the whole world can have its say. Spanish telly and press are lapping it all up, as are the chatterers on news sites. Spanish explanations for the riots cover easy access to benefits, Muslims, British imperialism, Conservative governments, a British mob mentality dating back to the Mods and Rockers, and the absence of a middle class in Britain. Some will be the same explanations of Brits themselves; others will make no sense, like the belief that there is no middle class and only rich and poor.

The Mods and Rockers one initially seems odd, but may not be as the riots are only partially a race thing. Whitey is engaged as well, finally finding a cause about which he can riot, one that The Clash called for as long ago as 1977. And the cause is a pair of Nike trainers.

Buried among the Spanish prescriptions on the internet, which have expanded into a free-for-all aimed at Magalluf and Benidorm tourists and demands for Gibraltar and the Malvinas to be returned, are the occasional voices who wonder if the same thing might happen in Spain. But as Spain has a middle class, and Britain doesn't have, then presumably it won't. You do get some pretty weird and distorted views, as you do from the Brits themselves.

Everyone knows what the causes of the riots are; or rather, they reckon they know. I have my own views as to the causes, but why should you be interested in knowing them? They might be right, they might be wrong. However, unlike 1981, when I lived in a part of London that was caught up in the riots, albeit to nothing like the extent that the media suggested, and lived in a city where I knew well enough the issues in Brent, Brixton, Southall, what do I know now?

Perhaps I know far more, however, because these are riots by media and the revolution is very clearly televised.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.